Andy Burnham just made a deadly call – now Britain faces the ultimate test

Instead, he’s contented himself with small, easy announcements, like knocking VAT off electricity bills, cutting the bus fare cap to £2 or reducing business rates for pubs. The difficult bit is working out how to pay for them. So far, he’s avoided that. Bigger decisions lie ahead, on social care, council house building, welfare reform, immigration and stopping the boats. When he finally tackles those, we’ll get the measure of the man.

This week, he’s made another simple decision. But the consequences could be far more dramatic. Quite rightly, Burnham said Britain will continue “to support Ukraine 100% against this illegal war led by Vladimir Putin”. As a policy decision, that’s a no-brainer. It was our position under Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. The country is behind him. You’d have to be Diane Abbott, Zack Polanski or a neo-Nazi Putin sympathiser to disagree.

However, Burnham has to understand what we’re getting into here. Ukraine has been using drones made by two British companies in deep strikes against Russian territory. Britain is also providing increasingly advanced weaponry, including Storm Shadow missiles. Now we’ve just handed Ukraine blueprints to manufacture Storm Shadow missiles themselves. Russia warned that will “add fuel to the fire” of the conflict”.

Burnham shot back: “Who started the fire? That’s fighting talk, but the PM has to understand that words are nowhere near enough. This is a hot war, not a cold one. If we’re backing Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia, we have to accept that Russia might strike us in some way.

I don’t expect Putin to fire missiles at British cities. But there are plenty of other ways he could hurt us. Moscow is openly warning that it might directly British military targets in Ukraine.

Russia might also launch covert cyber-attacks against civilian targets in Britain, such as the NHS or our transport system. Or menace passenger airports with drones, as he’s done in Germany. Attacks against our undersea infrastructure are possible. As are targeted assassinations of Ukrainian sympathisers in Britain. Remember the Salisbury poisonings?

Russia has already demonstrated its appetite for sabotage in Britain. In 2024, a Russian-ordered arson attack targeted a London warehouse holding supplies for Ukraine. Two men were convicted over arson attacks on properties linked to Keir Starmer.

Last month, a Russian naval vessel conducted a live-fire exercise 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth. It was sending a message. Alternatively, Russia could test our resolve by launching a kamikaze drone attack against a NATO member, such as one of the Baltic states.

Russia is mostly mouth. Putin supporters have repeatedly threatened World War III without starting it. But Britain isn’t mentally prepared for war. We’ve faced terror bombings since the Second World War, but this could be on a different scale. We are not psychologically prepared for what Ukraine has undergone.

And we definintely aren’t militarily prepared. Our armed forces have been impoverished, and the Government’s own Defence Investment Plan has a £4.7billion funding gap. Chancellor John Healey needs to fill that and fast.

Burnham is talking the talk. At some point soon, he might have to walk the walk. He needs to start making those difficult decisions. Now